Design documents open with the page panel closed by default. This is also true for the viewer role and the dev mode. I notice that stakeholders who view our design files have difficulty opening this.
This takes us a lot of time to explain each time. Now we have an explanation on our cover page of how it works to open this.
I think it actually makes sense if the page panel is open by default. Especially because Figma itself also gives advice on how to divide the design file with multiple pages. If a functionality is so default in use, it must also be open by default.
How are you experiencing this?